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Description: Issued quarterly since October 1947, the Industrial & Labor Relations Review is a leading interdisciplinary journal, broad in scope and international in its coverage of work and employment issues. We also publish reviews of some 20 books per year. We define industrial relations to include a broad range of market, organizational, and institutional processes related to the world of work. Relevant topics include the organization of work, the nature of employment contracts, human resource management, employment relations, conflict management and dispute resolution, labor market dynamics and policies, labor and employment law, and employee attitudes and behaviors at work. Our articles are edited with the aim of making their findings and conclusions intelligible to all readers.

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Abstract

Trade union density, defined as the number of union members divided by the total number of workers, fell in Britain from 55% in 1979 to about 41% in 1989. (By comparison, the corresponding U.S. figures for those years are 23% and 16%.) Even before the decline began, British scholars and practitioners began focusing increasing attention on the determinants of union growth and decline. This literature review traces debate on the subject in Britain to the work of George Bain and his colleagues starting in the mid-1970s, and examines several key contributions of more recent years. The authors differentiate "structuralist" studies, which emphasize environmental determinants of union membership (such as the business cycle), from "interventionist" studies, which place more emphasis on the influence of unions themselves (through the involvement of full-time officials in recruiting, for example).